When she’d left the house, her housemate, Maggie, had been lying in front of the TV wearing her tartan pyjamas, ready to watch The Voice.
‘Ella, at least put on a scarf and a woolly hat. No man’s worth getting pneumonia for,’ she’d said, peering over her little round glasses.
‘This is the first time he’ll see me properly, not just from pictures online. I want to look even better in the flesh,’ she’d replied, twirling her hand over her cleavage in the low-cut black top. ‘First impressions are important.’
‘His first impression will be that you’re a sure thing,’ Maggie replied. ‘Text me when you get there, and text me if you stay out?’
‘Course I will.’
‘You promise?’
‘I promise.’
Feeling the bouncer’s gaze on her back, Ella opened her bag, and rummaged inside for her phone.
‘Sorry, excuse me,’ said a voice. She turned. A strange geeky-looking guy with brown hair was standing in the shadows, just around the corner of the building. He wore an ill-fitting black suit with a spotted bow tie. She ignored him and turned back to her phone.
‘Sorry to bother you, hello? Can you help me?’ he asked.
She turned back again as he moved closer into the pool of light cast by the streetlights. He was holding up a map and squinting. ‘I’m trying to find the Hooligans theme pub? I’m singing there tonight for a birthday party.’
You look more like a bad comedian than a singer, she thought.
‘Hooligans is further down there, towards Angel tube,’ she said, pointing dismissively. Her hands were now numb. She turned back to her phone and opened her messages.
‘Look, I’m so sorry to pester you, but I’ve got no clue about London; can you show me on the map?’ he said. He had the map opened out on top of a car by the kerb, and was wrestling comically with the paper in the cold breeze. ‘I’m supposed to be on stage any minute for a ninetieth birthday… I have to get there before the old girl kicks the bucket!’ He looked up at her and grinned.
Despite everything, she grinned back.
‘Go on. Make it quick, I’m freezing,’ she said, slipping her phone back into her bag and moving over to him. ‘Haven’t you got GPS?’
‘I should do… But I’m a bit of a technophobe,’ he said, starting to fold up the map. ‘I’m not from round here. If you can just show me quickly, I’m running a bit late.’
‘Why are you putting the map away?’ she said.
He folded it down to the last square, and placed it on the roof of the car.
‘Harry’s not coming to meet you,’ he said.
‘What?’
He was staring at her intently, his geeky amiable face now hard. Before she could say anything more, he raised his arm and she felt something hit her on the back of the head, and then everything went black.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Darryl caught Ella before she slid down between the car and the kerb. Moving quickly, he dragged her limp body round to the boot, opened it and placed her neatly on the dark green bath towels he had laid out in preparation.
The bar around the corner remained quiet, but the road lit up behind with a car’s headlights, and he quickly closed the boot. The car whooshed past, indicating right at the junction before pulling out. Darryl spied one of Ella’s high heels in the kerb by the back wheel. He retrieved it and got in the car.
He’d been torn; he knew he’d had to move fast, to knock her out and get her in the car, but she’d looked so beautiful. He’d never seen her so close up; her green eyes were cat-like, and the smell of her perfume mixed in with the smell of her shampoo had wafted over. Mangoes. She had really gone to town for Harry.
He started the engine and pulled away, driving along a little way and then taking a left into a quiet cul-de-sac ending with a row of lock-up garages. He pulled into the shadows and got out. When he opened the boot, Ella lay on her side, moaning, her eyes fluttering. He punched her in the face, once, twice and had to stop himself giving her a third fist as her nose started to bleed. He took out a pale flannel which had his initials embroidered in red, and stuffed it into her mouth. Then he taped it over with silver masking tape, looping it around the back of her head twice. He bound her wrists tightly, and her legs, then finally he put a grain sack over her head and tied it loosely at the neck. He checked the pockets of her coat, and grabbed her bag still hooked over her arm. He took out her mobile and turned it off, then slipped it back into the bag. He covered her with a blanket and closed the boot, not forgetting to add the shoe which had fallen off.
He checked the cul-de-sac. Lights were on in the upstairs window in one house. He walked along the lock-up garages to the end, and then chucked her handbag down a tiny, rubbish-filled alleyway.
Darryl got back into the car, adjusted the rear-view mirror, did a U-turn, and started the long drive back to the farm.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Fresh snow started to fall when Darryl reached the M25, and despite the late hour, traffic was heavy. He kept some distance with the car in front, but a small blue Honda kept up his tail, just as impatient as he was to get home. Every time the traffic surged forward he worried that the driver would misjudge speed and road conditions and slam into the back of him.
It wasn’t until he pulled off at the junction to the M20 that he relaxed. The road was empty, save for a gritter which rumbled past on the other carriageway. He drove past the front gates of the farm, and along the quiet road for a few minutes. He had the wipers on, but the snow was now coming down so thick that he almost drove past a gate in between two hedgerows. He turned too fast, and had to slam on the brakes. The car slowed, but nudged into the metal bars with a nasty crunch.
‘Shit!’ he shouted, getting out. He went around to the front of the car. The hood was slightly puckered and the paintwork scratched. ‘Shit!’ He opened the gate, drove the car through onto the edge of a snow-covered track, then closed it.
He had wanted to turn off the headlights on the half mile stretch of track, but visibility was dreadful and he didn’t want to risk straying into a ditch. The half mile seemed to go on forever as the car creaked and lurched, the wheels sticking a couple of times and spinning on the snow. Eventually the Oast House appeared around a bank of bare trees. The round tower with the funnel-shaped chimney looked grey and alien lit up by the car headlights. He passed the trees and drew up to the tall round tower, killing the lights and the engine.